CKAN: ckan.org Website

Source code for the ckan.org website — the CKAN project site, built with Django 5.2.17 and Wagtail 7.4.

Quick Links

Resource	Link
🌍 Live site	https://ckan.org/
📚 Documentation	https://docs.ckan.org/
💻 GitHub (CKAN repos)	https://github.com/ckan
✨ Features	https://ckan.org/features
🗂️ Showcase (portals)	https://ckan.org/showcase
📝 Blog	https://ckan.org/blog
📅 Events	https://ckan.org/events
❓ FAQ	https://ckan.org/faq
🛟 Support — community	https://ckan.org/community
🛟 Support — commercial	https://ckan.org/commercial

Information

• Title: ckan.org
• Preview: https://ckan.org/
• Tech stack: Python 3.11+ · Django 5.2.17 · Wagtail 7.4

Directory Hierarchy

Condensed, collapsible overview of the repository layout.

📂 ckan-org/ — Django + Wagtail project root

ckan-org/
├── ckanorg/                 # Django project core
│   ├── settings/base.py     #   main settings (DB, cache, email, Wagtail)
│   ├── static/              #   global source assets (css, js, img, fonts, scss)
│   ├── templates/           #   base.html, header.html, footer.html + per-app templates
│   └── urls.py · views.py · wsgi.py
│
├── Wagtail apps — each has models.py, admin.py, views.py, urls.py, tests.py,
│   migrations/ (and templatetags/ where needed):
│   ├── home/ · blog/ · events/ · stories/ · anniversary/
│   ├── portals/ · ckan_pages/ · faq/ · contact/ · managers/
│   └── menus/ · dashboard/ · search/ · streams/
│
├── scss/                    # Sass sources compiled into the static output
├── static/                  # collected static output (STATIC_ROOT / Whitenoise)
├── media/                   # user uploads (symlink to shared storage on servers)
├── cache/                   # wagtail-cache page cache (symlink on servers)
│
├── manage.py                # Django management entrypoint
├── requirements.txt         # Python dependencies
├── Dockerfile · deploy.sh · bitbucket-pipelines.yml
├── robots.txt · checklist.md · .gitignore
└── LICENSE.txt · README.md

ℹ️ Note: streams/ is a live Wagtail app, not a duplicate tree. It provides the shared snippet/block models used elsewhere — e.g. CkanForCard, PoweredCard, PoweringImage, GitCardBlock and PoweringOpendataBlock (referenced by home/ and ckan_pages/). A previously duplicated project tree that had accumulated under streams/ was removed to prevent stale-template drift.

Install & Dependencies

The site runs on Python 3.11+ with the following core stack (see requirements.txt for the full list):

• Python 3.11+
• Django 5.2.17
• Wagtail 7.4
• Database: PostgreSQL 12+ (SQLite is fine for local development)

Local environment setup

The steps below assume a fresh local clone on Linux/macOS. Production uses PostgreSQL; for local development you can use SQLite (see steps 3 and 7).

1. Create a virtual environment and activate it.

python3 -m venv wagenv 

source wagenv/bin/activate 

2. Clone the repository and change into the folder:

git clone https://github.com/ckan/ckan.org.git

3. SQLite only: comment out psycopg2 in requirements.txt (keep it if using PostgreSQL).

4. Install wheel library

pip install wheel

5. Install the project dependencies from requirements.txt (mind the pinned versions).

pip install -r requirements.txt

6. Prepare the local media/ and static/ folders

Remove the tracked cache and media links (they point to shared server storage), create the local folders, and collect the static files:

mkdir -p media static
python manage.py collectstatic

7. Use SQLite for local development (switch the database in the settings):

diff --git a/ckanorg/settings/base.py b/ckanorg/settings/base.py
index be311ca..ec8777f 100644
--- a/ckanorg/settings/base.py
+++ b/ckanorg/settings/base.py
@@ -225,11 +225,7 @@ with open(BASE_DIR + '/../config/secret.txt') as f:
 
 DATABASES = {
     'default': {
-        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
-        'NAME': 'ckanorg',
-        'USER': 'ckanorg',
-        'PASSWORD': DB_PASS,
-        'HOST': DB_HOST,
-        'PORT': 5432,
+        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
+        'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
     }
 }

Note: Wagtail 7.4 targets PostgreSQL 12+; SQLite is only a convenience for local development.

8. Set up the database

• Recommended: copy the shared dummy db.sqlite3 file (ask the managers) into the ckan.org folder so you don't have to rebuild every page from scratch.
• Otherwise migrate a fresh database:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

💡 Helpful — avoid first-run DoesNotExist crashes on a fresh database

If you start from an empty database, the front end crashes with Page.DoesNotExist on the very first load: the footer template tag {% add_blog_post_url %} in ckanorg/templates/footer.html calls Page.objects.get(slug='blog'), which requires the Wagtail page tree to already exist.

To avoid this, use the shared dummy db.sqlite3 above, or, when migrating from scratch, run python manage.py createsuperuser and create the core top-level pages (at minimum a Blog listing page with slug blog, the home page and the Wagtail site record) in the admin before opening http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

9. Disable the Wagtail cache for local development:

diff --git a/ckanorg/settings/base.py b/ckanorg/settings/base.py
index be311ca..3837822 100644
--- a/ckanorg/settings/base.py
+++ b/ckanorg/settings/base.py
@@ -49,7 +49,6 @@ INSTALLED_APPS = [
     'wagtail.admin',

-    'wagtailcache',
     'modelcluster',
     'taggit',
 
@@ -87,18 +86,8 @@ MIDDLEWARE = [
     'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
     'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
     'wagtail.contrib.redirects.middleware.RedirectMiddleware',
-    'wagtailcache.cache.FetchFromCacheMiddleware',
 ]
 
-CACHES = {
-    'default': {
-        'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.filebased.FileBasedCache',
-        'LOCATION': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'cache'),
-        'KEY_PREFIX': 'wagtailcache',
-        'TIMEOUT': 3600, # one hour (in seconds)
-    }
-}
-
 X_FRAME_OPTIONS = 'ALLOWALL'
 ROOT_URLCONF = 'ckanorg.urls'

10. Re-configure the email backend:

diff --git a/ckanorg/settings/base.py b/ckanorg/settings/base.py
index be311ca..d0b68dc 100644
--- a/ckanorg/settings/base.py
+++ b/ckanorg/settings/base.py
@@ -192,11 +181,13 @@ WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME = "ckanorg"
 BASE_URL = '<https://ckan.org'>
 
 EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
-EMAIL_HOST = 'email-smtp.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com'
+EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp.gmail.com'
 EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
 EMAIL_PORT = 587
-DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'noreply@ckan.org'
+EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'linkdigitaltest@gmail.com'
+DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'linkdigitaltest@gmail.com'
+EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'my-password'
+
 
 ACCOUNT_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD = 'username_email'
 ACCOUNT_CONFIRM_EMAIL_ON_GET = True

11. Remove the secret-info block and set a SECRET_KEY:

@@ -216,20 +207,11 @@ ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']
 
 WAGTAIL_APPEND_SLASH = False
 
-with open(BASE_DIR + '/../config/secret.txt') as f:
-    data = f.read().strip().split(',')
-    SECRET_KEY = data[0]
-    EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = data[1]
-    DB_HOST = data[2]
-    DB_PASS = data[3]
-    RECAPTCHA_PUBLIC_KEY = data[4]
-    RECAPTCHA_PRIVATE_KEY = data[5]
-    EMAIL_HOST_USER = data[6]
+SECRET_KEY = 'my-secret-key'

🔒 Security — don't hardcode secrets in settings/base.py

base.py is committed to the repository, so real credentials — SECRET_KEY, email/DB passwords, reCAPTCHA keys — must never be hardcoded there. The placeholder values in the steps above are for local development only.

Prefer environment variables or a git-ignored local override, e.g. add SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY', 'dev-only-insecure-key') at the bottom of base.py.

On servers, real secrets live in config/secret.txt, which sits outside the repo and is never committed.

12. Start the local server: python manage.py runserver.

13. Open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser.

You will not see some images, as media folder is empty. If you need them, you can edit pages in admin section and upload your test images. (To login as admin into the provided sqlite database, contact managers).

14. Useful Django/Wagtail commands:

python manage.py makemigrations python manage.py migrate python manage.py collectstatic

to work with django models and styles.

If you want to be ensured that outdated JS bundles are removed use: python manage.py collectstatic --clear --noinput

15. Populate the reference table:

Populate the references table and ensure that usage counts for images, documents and snippets are displayed accurately

python manage.py rebuild_references_index

Testing & Validation

Tests are written as Django TestCase classes in each app's tests.py (e.g. contact/tests.py, faq/tests.py, portals/tests.py, stories/tests.py, anniversary/tests.py).

Run the pytest suite from the project root (pytest-django picks up DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE from manage.py):

# Install pytest support (once)
pip install pytest pytest-django

# Run the full suite
pytest

# Run a single app / a single test case
pytest contact/ -v
pytest contact/tests.py::ParseContactFormTests -v

Django's built-in test runner also works:

python manage.py test
python manage.py test contact

A quick pre-merge validation pass:

python manage.py check
python manage.py makemigrations --check --dry-run
pytest

Instructions on how to deploy changes

1. Create a new fork from main branch of the repository https://github.com/ckan/ckan.org. A fork is a copy of a repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project. So all tasks that you push are going to our fork repository, not the main one. If it was done earlier be sure you have cloned main branch of the repository with last updates.
2. Create a new branch from main branch of your forked repository and name it as "[task key] / [task summary]".
3. Make all required changes.
4. Push your finished task code to your fork repository (cloned).
5. Deploy your changes to Development environment by making a Pull Request to develop branch of original repository so the PO (Product owner) can merge it after he/she will test the work done on Development.

Code Details

Tested Platform

• software

  OS: Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS (Lunar)
  Python: 3.12.12
  

• hardware

  CPU: Intel® Core™ i5
  GPU: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
  

Contributors

Many thanks to everyone who has helped build and maintain the ckan.org website.

GitHub	Name
Alex-Pavlyuk	Alex Pavlyuk
alexmorev	Aleksey Morev
amercader	Adrià Mercader
ostyhar	—

References

• Website source: https://github.com/ckan/ckan.org

License

This material is copyright (c) 2006-2018 Open Knowledge Foundation and contributors.

It is open and licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) v3.0 whose full text may be found at:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html